Bat webcam
Watch the live stream from our bat roost at Hanningfield Reservoir Nature Discovery Centre.
Welcome to our Soprano Pipistrelle bat webcam
A few years after the Nature Discovery Centre was opened, in 2000, a bat maternity roost was established in the roof of the centre. Every spring, pregnant females come to the roost to give birth and rear their young. The bats then all leave in the autumn, to go to their hibernation roost elsewhere. The roost is entirely made up of soprano pipistrelle bats; tiny creatures that are about the size of an adult human thumb. The webcam has been installed in a special bat box that was built in 2009 to encourage more of these fascinating mammals.
In July 2019 a total count of 1786 was recorded. Of these, 534 came out of the box and the rest came from the roof of the Nature Discovery Centre. This is the largest number ever reported for a soprano pipistrelle roost as part of the Bat Conservation Trust’s National Bat Monitoring Programme. COVID caused a temporary 18 month pause in the monitoring, but it started again in mid-2021. Whilst numbers have dropped slightly from their 2019 peak there is still a healthy population and in 2023 a total count of 1555 was recorded at the end of May with 448 emerging from the box.
Thank you to Essex Bat Group for their help with this project.
